How to set up parental controls on an iPhone

2025-04-27 23:02:18admin

That new iPhone might be in your child’s hands at all times. And while they probably would love unfettered access to their friends on social media and every other site on the web, parents, for good reason, might not be so eager to hand over full access.

Here’s how to set up parental controls on a child’s iPhone.

Set up Family Sharing

Family Sharing lets parents remotely set some limits on how kids use their iPhones, including the ability to approve purchases and limit how much time kids spend on their tablet. To set up Family Sharing, you’ll need to select your group’s family organizer — one adult in the family — to be in charge. The family organizer should follow these steps to set up Family Sharing on their iOS device.

Go to Settings and then tap on your name.
Select Family Sharing and choose Set Up Your Family.
From there, follow the instructions to add your family members.

Set up Family Sharing in the Apple ID Settings menu. Credit: alex hazlett

Turn on Family Sharing to manage members' screen time restrictions. Credit: alex hazlett

Set up Ask to Buy on your child’s iPhone

Within Family Sharing, you can enable Ask to Buy, which allows you to approve or disapprove purchase requests from your child. This feature is a default setting for kids under 13, but you can set it up for teenagers if you have Family Sharing. Just know that once you’ve disabled it when your child hits 18, you won’t be able to turn it on again.

In Family Sharing, go to Ask to Buy
Select your child’s name and enable Ask to Buy.

How to enable Screen Time features on your child’s iPhone

Through Family Sharing, you also can set up additional parental controls through the Screen Time feature and monitor their use. Here’s what to do:

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Go to Settings on your device and select Screen Time.
Select your child’s name under Family. You’ll pull up the menu that includes Downtime, App Limits and Content & Privacy Restrictions.

Now it’s time to set some parental controls. Here’s what you can do when you select each option.

Downtime: Choose when your child will have access to specific apps at specific times.

App Limits: Set specific time limits for groups of apps or individual apps, so kids aren’t on YouTube for 10 hours a day, for example.

Communications Limits: Establish who they can contact and when.

Content & Privacy Restrictions:Within Content & Privacy Restrictions, you’ll be able to restrict a variety of activities on the iPhone, including:

iTunes or in the App Store purchases: Choose iTunes & App Store Purchases and select Don’t Allow for in-app purchases.
Access to built-in apps and features: Tap Allowed Apps and pick which apps you don’t want your child to use.
Content Restrictions: Here, you’ll find a host of ways to control their screen time activities. These are just a few of the activities you can limit:
What content they can view.
Click on Movies, Books and TV Shows to prevent them from seeing R-rated movies, explicit books and TV-MA television shows, for example.
Access to web content.
Go to Web Content where you can prevent kids from opening adult websites or allow access to specific websites such as PBS Kids or Disney.
Siri web searches.
Under Siri, you can stop Siri from searching the web or displaying explicit language.
Gaming.
Scroll down to the Game Center. From there, you can set limits on multiplayer games, prevent kids from adding or connecting with friends and block private messaging, among other activities.

Important step: Once you’ve set up controls, be sure to create a special Screen Time Passcode by tapping on that phrase, “Screen Time Passcode,” on your child’s Screen Time page. It will ask you to set a four-digit passcode. Be sure to select a passcode that is different from the digits used to unlock the iPhone. You don’t want your child to figure it out.

Finally, if you haven’t set up Family Sharing, no worries. You can still control Screen Time following the steps above on your child’s iPhone. Just be sure to create that special Screen Time Passcode so they don’t change the settings.